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Christmas and Compassion

Christmas and Compassion

04/12/2017

Christmas

Christmas is a time of giving, a time of kindness towards fellow humans. We see the season as warm, and generous, and happy. We put extra effort into helping those less fortunate than ourselves, we feed the homeless, give more to charity, make donations in the name of the Christmas spirit.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this.

But.

These less fortunate people exist all year. They exist when you spend hundreds on that holiday, thousands on that new kitchen, tens of thousands on that new car. So why only think of them at Christmas?

This isn’t the same for everyone. There are those who are always generous and always working hard to help the world become something better. For some, though, it seems Christmas is a time when it is fashionable to help, fashionable to be more giving and kind.

I have thought for many years now – what sort of world would we live in if the world stayed as it is during the holidays? If people stayed as generous, and as giving, during the whole year? It would be a nicer world I think.

Compassion

Compassion stems beyond this, of course. It lives in the small things ass well as the large: in understanding when someone is having a bad day, or when someone can’t just do what you want them to do, when an employee needs to take a few days off work for illness or family reasons. It is understanding that we are all human, we all feel, and what is possible for one person isn’t always for another. It is realising that just because you can shake off a cold and not bother, another person might not be able too. Yes, there are worse things in the world than a cold. For some, though, those who perhaps haven’t experience anything much worse, a cold can be horrendous. For people with other medical issues, a cold can be like having the flu.

So next time you go to criticise someone, or next time you are spending money on things that you can actually live and function without, think of compassion.

Take the time now, in fact, to think of how you would like to be treated. Try to treat others in that same way. Compassion will comeback to you, in large and small ways.